Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T15:36:50.318Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘Can I help you?’ accessorial liability and the intention to assist

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

R. A. Duff
R. A. Duff*
Affiliation:
University of Stirling
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Aiding and abetting requires an ‘intention’ to assist the commission of the relevant offence. But what should ‘intention’ mean in this context? Does D have that intention just so long as she acts in a way which she knows will facilitate the commission of the offence which P intends to commit, or must she act in order to assist the commission of that offence?

On one view knowledge is sufficient, since D need only have ‘intended to do the acts which he knew to be capable of assisting or encouraging the commission of the crime’. A brewer who knowingly sells beer to someone who intends to resell it without a licence is guilty of aiding and abetting, as is a person who lends her car to someone who intends, she knows, to use it for a criminal venture.

Type
Research Article
Information
Legal Studies , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , July 1990 , pp. 165 - 181
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Legal Scholars 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 J. C. Smith & B. Hogan, Criminal Law (6th edn, Butterworths, 1988) 138–9; see also R Buxton, ‘Complicity in the Criminal Code’ (1969) 85 LQR 252.

2 Cook v Stockwell [1915] 79 JP 394; see also Cafferata v Wilson [1936] 3 All ER 149.

3 Bullock [1955] 1 WLR 1.

4 NCB v Gamble [1959] 1 QB 11.

5 Lomas [1913] 9 Cr App Rep 220, as explained in Bullock; see NCB v Gamble at p 20 (Devlin J).

6 See Smith & Hogan, op cit (n 1 above) p 141.

7 Law Commission No 177, ‘A Criminal Code for England and Wales’ (1989): Volume 1, Report and Draft Criminal Code Bill; Volume 2, Commentary.

8 See Clause 18(b); Examples to Clause 27(1); Commentary 9.18, 9.25.

9 Gillick v W Norfolk & Wisberh Area Health Authority [1986] 1 AC 112.

10 Clause 27(6), and Examples thereto; these cases are presumably to be seen as special instances of necessity.

11 See A-G's Reference (No 1 of 1975) 1975] QB 773 at 780; G Williams, Textbook of Criminal Law (2nd edn, Stevens, 1983) pp 339, 341.

12 See I H Dennis, ‘The Mental Element for Accessories’ (P Smith (ed), Criminal Law: Essays in Honour of J C Smith (Butterworths, 1987) 40) at pp 51–55; G R Sullivan, ‘Intent, Purpose and Complicity’ (1988) Crim LR 641; G Williams, ‘Oblique Intention’ (1987) CLJ 417, p436.

13 See G H Gordon, The Criminal Law of Scotland (2nd edn, W Green, 1978) pp 142–144; and US v Falcone [1940] 109 F(2d) 579.

14 Gillick at p 190 (per Lord Scarman).

15 R v Salford Health Authority, ex p Janaway (1988) Times, 5 January; see also A-G v Able [1984] QB 795.

16 Steane [1947] KB 997; Lynch [1975] AC 653.

17 See, for instance, G Williams, Criminal Law: The General Part (2nd edn, Stevens, 1961) p 41; Smith & Hogan, op cit (n 1 above) p 58.

18 J C Smith [1986] Crim LR 114; see also Smith & Hogan, op cit, p 139, and the comments on Fretwell [1862] 169 ER 1345 in Williams, Criminal Law: The General Part, p 368, and Smith & Hogan, op cit, p 140.

19 As, for instance, a chemist who knowingly supplies an abortifacient can be convicted under s 59 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861 (see Williams, Criminal Law: The General Part, p 369).

20 See Sullivan, op cit (n 12 above); R Buxton, op cit (n 1 above).

21 See G Fletcher, Rethinking Criminal Law (Little, Brown, 1978) ch 8.

22 See Cunliffe v Goodman [1950] 2 KB 237 at 253 (per Lord Asquith).

23 See ss 27, 49(1) of the Penal Code of the Federal Republic of Germany (trans J P Darby, Sweet and Maxwell, 1987); Fletcher, op cit (n 21 above) ch 8.5–6; C M VClarkson & H M Keating, Criminal Law: Text and Materials (Sweet & Maxwell, 1984) pp 442–447.

24 See Dennis, op cit (n 12 above) pp 52–54.

25 See 1989 Draft Criminal Code C1 18(b); Dennis, op cit, pp 52, 54; R A Duff, ‘Intention, Mens Rea and the Law Commission Report’ (1980) Grim LR 147, pp 149–151.

26 See Perkins [1955] III CCC 194 (Nova Scotia Appeal Court).

27 Williams, Criminal Law: The General Part, p 356.

28 HM Advocate v Semple [1937] JC 41; see Gordon, op cit (n 13 above) p 144.

29 Dennis, op cit (n 12 above) p 52.

30 Dennis, op cit, p 54.

31 See the examples discussed in Gordon, op cit (n 13 above) pp 142–143.

32 [1959 1 1 QB 11.

33 Dennis, op cit (n 12 above) p 52; see Sullivan, op cit (n 12 above) pp 643–645.

34 See NCB v Gamble at p 13.

35 NCB v Gamble at p 13.

36 See NCB v Gamble at pp 21–22.

37 See Gordon, op cit (n 13 above) p 143; Smith & Hogan, op cit (n 1 above) p 142.

38 CI 18(b); see text at n 8 above.

39 See R A Duff, op cit (n 25 above) pp 151–153.

40 See the prosecutor's argument at NCB v Gamble, p 17.

41 Gillick at p 190 (per Lord Scarman).

42 See NCB v Gamble at p 20.

43 Williams, Criminal Law: The General Part, p 373.

44 Perhaps along the lines suggested in Williams, op cit, p 380.

45 See Fletcher, op cit (n 21 above) ch 8; on liability for omissions see Smith & Hogan, op cit (n 1 above) pp 48–55.

46 NCB v Gamble at p 20.

47 See, for instance, R Buxton, op cit (n 1 above) pp 252–253, 263–264.

48 See J Casey, ‘Actions and Consequences’ (in Casey (ed), Morality and Moral Reasoning (Methuen, 1971) 155).

49 See Miller [1983] 2 AC 161.

50 See Smith & Hogan, op cit (n 1 above) p 767.

51 See Smith & Hogan, op cit, p 833.

52 See Fletcher, op cit (n 21 above) p 676; Williams, Textbook of Criminal Law, p 342; also Judge Learned Hand in US v Falcone - ‘It is not enough that he does not forgo a normally lawful activity, of the fruits of which he knows that others will make an unlawful use’.

53 R v Salford Health Authority, ex p Janaway..

54 Licensing Act 1964, s 172(3).

55 For instance on those dealing in firearms; and see n 19 above.

56 See text at n 10 above.

57 See Smith & Hogan, op cit (n 1 above) p 142; to see how their objection to the ‘uncertainty’ of such a rule can be met, compare the requirement to report certain types of ‘planned criminal activity’ under s 138 of the West German Penal Code (n 23 above).

58 Compare the German requirement cited in n 57 above.

59 See J Feinberg, Harm to Others (Oxford University Press, 1984) ch 4.